I've been doing some thinking about this for some time, and have recently purchased some plans for building an ethanol still. I think it will make the perfect fuel for my 10:1 390FE.

My question is, has anyone ever built one, and what are the economics of it? I know with oil hitting $70 a barrel, it may very soon become less expensive to run than gasoline.

 

try running_on_alcohol.tripod.com
It's a great source, I have not done it myself but I plan to try.

 

Umm...oil hasn't hit $70/BBL yet; in fact, after the past couple of days, it's nearing $50 again. I agree, though, that the days of Arbitrarily Unaffordable Gasoline are nigh, if not already upon us.

Ethanol is intriguing, especially if you can live with the shorter cruising range (assuming you keep the same tank size), but the first thing I'd look into is how much $$ it's going to cost to run the still. You'll need electricity for that...lots of it to make meaningful amounts of ETOH...and at least where I come from, electricity comes from oil...

 

Hrm, I thought I saw on the news $70 / barrel. Maybe that was an estimate or something.

My plan, since I have lots of lawn waste and wood, was to heat it by burning lawn waste / wood. Believe me, I have PLENTY. The only issue I've thought of, is keeping it at about 178 degrees. I think some sort of computer controlled vent, to control temperature, would work, no?